“Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me,
may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have
given me because you loved me before the foundation of
the world.” —John 17:24

What does Jesus want this Christmas?
We can see the answer in his prayers. What does he ask God
for? His longest prayer is John 17. The climax of his desire is in
verse 24.

Among all the undeserving sinners in the world, there are
those whom God has “given to Jesus.” These are those whom
God has drawn to the Son (John 6:44, 65). These are Christians—
people who have “received” Jesus as the crucified and
risen Savior and Lord and Treasure of their lives (John 1:12;
3:17; 6:35; 10:11, 17–18; 20:28). Jesus says he wants them to be
with him.

Sometimes we hear people say that God created man because he was lonely. So they say, “God created us so that we would be
with him.” Does Jesus agree with this? Well, he does say that he
really wants us to be with him! Yes, but why? Consider the rest
of the verse. Why does Jesus want us to be with him?
… to see my glory that you [Father] have given me
because you loved me before the foundation of the world.

That would be a strange way of expressing his loneliness. “I
want them with me so they can see my glory.” In fact, it doesn’t
express his loneliness. It expresses his concern for the satisfaction
of our longing, not his loneliness.

Jesus is not lonely. He and the Father and the Spirit are profoundly
satisfied in the fellowship of the Trinity. We, not he,
are starving for something. And what Jesus wants for Christmas
is for us to experience what we were really made for—seeing
and savoring his glory.

Oh, that God would make this sink in to our souls! Jesus
made us (John 1:3) to see his glory.
Just before he goes to the cross he pleads his deepest desires
with the Father: “Father, I desire [I desire!] that they . . . may be
with me where I am, to see my glory.”

But that is only half of what Jesus wants in these final, climactic
verses of his prayer. I just said we were really made for
seeing and savoring his glory. Is that what he wants—that we
not only see his glory but savor it, relish it, delight in it, treasure
it, love it? Consider verse 26, the very last verse:
I made known to them your name, and I will continue to
make it known, that the love with which you have loved
me may be in them, and I in them.

That is the end of the prayer. What is Jesus’s final goal for us?
Not that we simply see his glory, but that we love him with the
same love that the Father has for him: “that the love with which
you [Father] have loved me may be in them.”

Jesus’s longing and goal is that we see his glory and then
that we be able to love what we see with the same love that the
Father has for the Son. And he doesn’t mean that we merely
imitate the love of the Father for the Son. He means the
Father’s very love becomes our love for the Son—that we love
the Son with the love of the Father for the Son. This is what the
Spirit becomes and bestows in our lives: Love for the Son by the
Father through the Spirit.

What Jesus wants most for Christmas is that his elect be
gathered in and then get what they want most—to see his glory
and then savor it with the very savoring of the Father for the Son.
What I want most for Christmas this year is to join you
(and many others) in seeing Christ in all his fullness and that
we together be able to love what we see with a love far beyond
our own half-hearted human capacities. This is our goal in
these Advent devotionals. We want together to see and savor
this Jesus whose first “advent” (coming) we celebrate, and
whose second advent we anticipate.

This is what Jesus prays for us this Christmas: “Father, show
them my glory and give them the very delight in me that you
have in me.” Oh, may we see Christ with the eyes of God and
savor Christ with the heart of God. That is the essence of heaven.
That is the gift Christ came to purchase for sinners at the
cost of his death in our place.